Reports say Iowan Bob Bowlsby will become Big 12 commissioner

Former Iowa and Northern Iowa athletic director Bob Bowlsby will replace Dan Beebe as commissioner of the Big 12 Conference, according to multiple on-line reports. Chuck Neinas has been running the conference on an interim basis.

Waterloo native Bowlsby 60, was at Northern Iowa between 1984-91, at Iowa between 1991 and 2005, and at Stanford since 2006. He could not immediately be reached by The Des Moines Register.

Earlier, ESPN.com reported that Bowlsby is likely to replace Dan Beebe, who was fired last year.

Bowlsby could not be reached for comment. Stanford has tentatively scheduled a press conference for Friday.

The commissioner’s job pays about $1 million a year. Bowlsby, 60, signed a contract extension last summer to remain at Stanford through Aug. 31, 2017.

For the last few days he has been in Phoenix, where the Big 12 and Pac-12 meetings overlapped. He was known to have huddled this week with Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. ESPN.com’s sources said Scott had given him a strong endorsement.

Bowlsby helped the Pac-12 negotiate a lucrative multimedia deal with ESPN and Fox last year. He also is a former chairman of the NCAA men’s basketball committee and was a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s board of directors for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

He succeeded Ted Leland at Stanford in 2006 after spending 15 years as Iowa’s athletic director. Under his guidance, Stanford won its 17th straight Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup last spring as the top overall athletic program in the nation.

On his watch, Stanford’s football fortunes have risen dramatically. He hired coach Jim Harbaugh in 2006, and, after Harbaugh left for the 49ers last year, he promoted offensive coordinator David Shaw, whose first team went 11-2 and received a second straight BCS bowl berth. Among his other hires was men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins.

The 10-team Big 12 is expected to finalize a new TV contract soon.

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Bowlsby Timeline

Born: Jan. 10, 1952 in Waterloo

1984-1991: Athletic Director at Northern Iowa

1991-2005: Athletic Director at Iowa

2002-2004: President NCAA Athletic Director’s committee

2004-05: Chairman NCAA men’s basketball tournament committee

2006: Became athletic director at Stanford

2007: U.S. Olympic committee member

Notable:

**Mentioned in 2002 as a potential successor to outgoing NCAA president Cedric Dempsey: “I really don’t believe that job will be filled by someone who is an athletic director,” Bowlsby, Iowa’s AD at the time, told The Register then. “I have been around the NCAA enough to know that I likely will be right here for the foreseeable future. And that is just fine with me. I have plenty to do here.”

He also was was mentioned to replace Myles Brand in 2009.

“You know, I think the days are past when a former athletic administrator can get the job,” Bowlsby, then at Stanford, said.

**He was one of 15 people on the U.S. Department of Education commission assigned to review the impact of Title IX on college athletics.

Randy Peterson covers college football and college basketball for the Des Moines Register. Randy can be reached at randypeterson@dmreg.com or on Twitter via @RandyPete when not at Hilltop Restaurant in DM.